[ALBSA-Info] ANALYSIS-High stakes as Macedonia swaps guns for talks

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

ANALYSIS-High stakes as Macedonia swaps guns for talks

By Rosalind Russell

  
SKOPJE, April 1 (Reuters) - Now the guns are silent, Macedonia will start 
talks on Monday in a last ditch political effort to bridge its bitter ethnic 
divide and stop the country plunging towards civil war. 

Shaken by a month of violence and the prospect of another major Balkan 
conflict, the European Union is backing belated efforts by Macedonia's 
politicians to work towards ethnic reconciliation. 

President Boris Trajkovski will chair talks between all Macedonia's political 
leaders on ways to ease the grievances of the ethnic Albanian minority which 
fuelled a weeks-long armed insurrection. 

The stakes are high. The main ethnic Albanian leader, a key partner in 
Macedonia's fragile coalition government, says he will quit if ethnic 
Albanian demands are not met within a month -- leaving the men with guns to 
fight for Albanian rights. 

Slav politicians led by Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski are wary of a 
nationalist backlash from their own constituency if they concede too much. 

"They are all very very nervous but they realise if they don't start soon 
they'll lose momentum," said Brenda Potter, a Balkans watcher at the 
International Crisis Group, a respected conflict prevention think-tank. 

"This is the last chance for an integrated society." 

DISCRIMINATION AGAINST ALBANIANS 

Ethnic Albanians make up roughly one third of Macedonia's population and say 
they are discriminated against in all walks of life. 

They say only a change to the constitution, which names Macedonian Slavs as 
the primary nation, greater language rights and the decentralisation of 
government can start to redress this. 

"They have to move quickly to things which make a practical difference, for 
example decentralisation so that Albanians have a say in issues like schools 
and hospitals," said Potter. 

"This would satisfy minority aspirations without changing the whole country." 

But it might not be so easy. The two sides are being asked to achieve within 
weeks what they have failed to do in the 10 years since independence from 
socialist Yugoslavia in 1991. 

And there is still uncertainty over whether the constitution is up for 
discussion at all. 

Last week Foreign Minister Srgan Kerim said the subject was not taboo, but a 
day later the spokesman of Georgievski's ruling VMRO-DPMNE party said talks 
about constitutional reform were unacceptable. 

Mistrust runs deep and ethnic Albanian politicians accuse their Slav 
colleagues of repeatedly failing to keep promises. The Slavs say the 
Albanians keep shifting the goalposts. 

"We have had 10 years to do something. Our demands are nothing new but up 
until now nobody wanted to listen," ethnic Albanian leader Arben Xhaferi told 
Reuters in a recent interview. "Now we have very little time." 

EUROPE OFFERS SUPPORT 

EU security chief Javier Solana will fly to the Macedonian capital Skopje on 
Monday to lend his support to the dialogue. 

"We don't want to be mediators but Mr Solana hopes to find a way of 
reinvigorating the process and solidifying the national consensus at this 
time of trouble," Solana's spokeswoman, Cristina Gallach, told Reuters by 
telephone from Brussels. 

Solana and European Commissioner for External Relations Chris Patten will 
meet Trajkovski and opposition leaders and leaders of the ethnic Albanian 
parties. 

Europe has dangled the reward of greater links with the EU and increased aid 
as a reward for making progress towards ethnic reconciliation. 

Slav and Albanian government leaders have been invited to Luxembourg on April 
9 to sign a Stabilisation and Association agreement, which is viewed as the 
first step towards EU membership. 

But Xhaferi said in a statement, carried by Albanian radio on Saturday, that 
he would not go unless genuine negotiations on the demands of ethnic 
Albanians were already underway. 

The Macedonian army says it has completed its military operation to drive out 
guerrillas from its northern mountains near the border with U.N.-governed 
Kosovo. 

But the insurgents say they are merely regrouping and are ready to strike 
again if political negotiations fail. 

"If nothing happens politically in April then May could be very dangerous," 
said ICG's Potter.